PHILOSOPHY & THE HOSTBY REBECCA SCHWARTZ"It was supposed to be simple. Take over our bodies & erase our minds. But there is one human that refusesto be erased. They are seperate souls, fighting for the same thing"
In The Host by Stephenie Meyer, the Earth & the people on it are taken over by a new alien race called the Souls. In order to inhabit the helpless humans, the aliens take out the person's preexisting soul & replace it with the soul of an alien through a process of insertion. After this procedure, the invading alien then established its claim over their "hosts" mind & body. The plot of the story revolves around an alien, Wanderer, who takes over the body that once belonged to Melanie Stryder, a rebel human. After being "inserted" into the Melanie's body, Wandered finds herself not in full control over her human host when Melanie's mind is still active & constantly tries to fight for control over the body that both of them now share. Always being flooded by Melanie's vivid human thoughts, memories, emotions, and senses, Wanderer starts to lack control of Melanie's mind & finds herself falling in love with Melanie's human boyfriend, Jared Howe, & developing strong, compassionate feeling towards Melanie's younger brother, Jamie Stryder. The former tenant of Wanderer's body refused to relinquish possession of her mind. But with a turn of events & outside forces, Wanderer & Melanie become unwilling allies. Both then set off on a hazardous & uncertain search for the man & brother they both love.
In my opinion, this story can be related to the ideas of Socrates. Socrates saw the soul as being immortal & that is the case with Melanie's soul not wanting to leave her body even after it has been taken over by the aliens. Socrates also believed that although immortal, the soul may take different forms. He thought that a soul that is not properly detached from the body will become a ghost that will always desire to reattach to the original body. In the case of Melanie's soul, it tried & fought to regain control of the body it once inhabited.This book can also be compared to Aristotle's beliefs on the mind & soul. According to Aristotle,"the soul does not exist without a body and yet is not itself a kind of body. For it is not a body, but something which belongs to a body, and for this reason exists in a body, and in a body of such-and-such a kind." Aristotle believed that although the soul isn't a material object, it isn't separable from the body. He believed that the soul is linked to the body & is the form of the body, not a separate substance.
In The Host by Stephenie Meyer, the Earth & the people on it are taken over by a new alien race called the Souls. In order to inhabit the helpless humans, the aliens take out the person's preexisting soul & replace it with the soul of an alien through a process of insertion. After this procedure, the invading alien then established its claim over their "hosts" mind & body. The plot of the story revolves around an alien, Wanderer, who takes over the body that once belonged to Melanie Stryder, a rebel human. After being "inserted" into the Melanie's body, Wandered finds herself not in full control over her human host when Melanie's mind is still active & constantly tries to fight for control over the body that both of them now share. Always being flooded by Melanie's vivid human thoughts, memories, emotions, and senses, Wanderer starts to lack control of Melanie's mind & finds herself falling in love with Melanie's human boyfriend, Jared Howe, & developing strong, compassionate feeling towards Melanie's younger brother, Jamie Stryder. The former tenant of Wanderer's body refused to relinquish possession of her mind. But with a turn of events & outside forces, Wanderer & Melanie become unwilling allies. Both then set off on a hazardous & uncertain search for the man & brother they both love.
In my opinion, this story can be related to the ideas of Socrates. Socrates saw the soul as being immortal & that is the case with Melanie's soul not wanting to leave her body even after it has been taken over by the aliens. Socrates also believed that although immortal, the soul may take different forms. He thought that a soul that is not properly detached from the body will become a ghost that will always desire to reattach to the original body. In the case of Melanie's soul, it tried & fought to regain control of the body it once inhabited.This book can also be compared to Aristotle's beliefs on the mind & soul. According to Aristotle,"the soul does not exist without a body and yet is not itself a kind of body. For it is not a body, but something which belongs to a body, and for this reason exists in a body, and in a body of such-and-such a kind." Aristotle believed that although the soul isn't a material object, it isn't separable from the body. He believed that the soul is linked to the body & is the form of the body, not a separate substance.
CITATIONS;
http://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/plato/section3.rhtml
http://faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/320/psyche.htm